


hypotheticals

by orphan_account



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Frank Castle hates hypothetical questions. They’re almost as bad as murderers and crime lords, right up there with lies, college theology courses, and the district attorney."A one-shot wherein Frank remembers Maria, ruins Matt's night, and tries to move on with Karen





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing Daredevil related 
> 
> Please read and review!

Frank Castle hates hypothetical questions.

They’re almost as bad as murderers and crime lords, right up there with lies, college theology courses, and the district attorney.

That shit trips you up, gets you wrapped up in mental roleplay to figure out how you’d handle this if that happened, when that is probably never going to happen or couldn’t ever happen.

Besides, you don’t know what you’d do or say in a given situation until you’re in it.

                                                           

Frank Castle hates hypothetical questions.

He used to ask himself, hypothetically, how he’d react if Maria told him she was pregnant, try to plan an emergency response. He’d say something about how they’ll be fine, military families make it work all the time, he can pick up a few shifts at the auto shop and start a baby fund.

When it actually happened, he was standing in the middle of their apartment’s tiny kitchen, towering over her and trying not to look as anxious as he felt when he heard the words ‘pregnancy’ and ‘test’ used consecutively.

He did okay, until he heard the word ‘positive’. When he predetermined his response, he forgot that the real deal comes with bonus features like panic and disbelief and the fact that he’s _deploying overseas in two fucking days_.

They cried and they kissed. They made promises and they made love.

There was nothing hypothetical about it.

 

Frank Castle hates hypothetical questions.

He’s on one of the city’s hundreds of roofs, he’s pissed, and he’s taking aim.

Then the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is there and he’s saying something righteous, Frank is sure of that, even though he can’t hear his actual words over the wind and the traffic and the ringing in his ears.

Once he’s close enough to be heard clearly, Red points towards the door that’s a few yards away and asks Frank what he’d do if Maria walked through it, in an effort to save the life of a son of a bitch who runs errands (follows through on death threats) for the criminal elite, who’s also an inch away from the barrel of Frank’s shotgun (the one he stole from the Irish scumbag who drilled through his foot and threatened an abused dog, and used to kill said Irish scumbag).

Frank hates that question – he’s asked it himself for a variety of reasons. It’s the question that keeps him on the doorstep of insanity, the question that’s already saved a handful of lucky bastards who ran into him on a soft night.

The question is one hundred percent hypothetical – one hundred percent impossible – but has in many ways kept him from moving on. He knows Maria isn’t going to walk through that door, not that door or any other door on the planet. Why should he torture himself with the what if?

He thinks, for a split second, that Red should have used Karen – should’ve used someone he cares about who’s actually alive – but that wouldn’t have changed anything. Those kinds of questions never change anything.

So instead of answering, he pulls the trigger.

He’s walking away before Red can finish the sign of the cross.

 

Frank Castle hates hypothetical questions.

Karen’s question is a real bitch. That’s probably why she doesn’t ask it, not until she’s certain that he’s asleep (he’s not, though, unfortunately).

She’d kissed him that day, for the first time, and he’d let her. He’d deepened it, and she’d let him. They’d stopped before it went too far (before they did something he’d regret, that he’d feel guilty about, that would make him run and then feel guilty about that too, that would mess everything up by way of too much too soon).

It’s a whisper and it’s not meant to be heard.

“If you could change all this, would you, Frank? Go back and have Maria, never meet me… would you do that?” 

It takes all the control he has to keep his breathing even, keep from betraying that he’s awake and he heard her ask the question he hasn’t even let himself _think._

A sigh and another whisper: “I guess that’s not a fair question.”

She’s damn right it’s not. It’s not fair and it’s not possible, either. The only reason he can even consider moving on is because shit like that can’t happen, and it’s not fucking fair to ask him what he would do if it could.

He won’t answer, not even mentally. That question can’t matter, can’t mean anything, if he’s going to let the past be the past (because seeing the past as anything else is denial, and he can’t live in denial) (he may have some broken coping methods, but ignoring reality isn’t one of them).

She must be having similar thoughts, because she doesn’t say anything else. She just sits on the couch where he’s “sleeping”, stretches her legs across his, and tells him that she’s glad he’s here with her tonight.

He’s glad he is too.

 

Frank Castle hates hypothetical questions.

 

-end-


End file.
